Jack of Diamonds

by Bryce Courtenay

  To my surprise, Mr Leslie seemed impressed after reading the top page outlining my pathetic employment history. ‘Your medical background in the Canadian army could be very useful to us, Mr Reed,’ he said enthusiastically.

  ‘Oh? I’m not a doctor, sir,’ I hastened to say.

  ‘No, man, that’s not important.’ He spoke with a fairly guttural South African accent. ‘Are you prepared to work underground?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘I guess we’re all going to end up there one day,’ I quipped.

  ‘Hey, man, that’s very funny! Ja, I guess you’re right. The pay is good. I guarantee you can’t make this sort of money as a medic anywhere else in the world.’

  ‘What would I be expected to do?’ I asked, adding, ‘For instance, will I work under the supervision of a doctor?’

  ‘Mr Reed, I’m going to be honest with you. This is the bundu, man!’

  ‘The bundu?’ It wasn’t a word I knew.

  ‘The backwoods, the bush,’ he explained. ‘The Copperbelt is mining country – nothing else there, no farming, no industry – everything depends on the mines. Yes, there are some small towns – Ndola, Luanshya, Chingola, Kitwe, Luswishi River – but this is a British protectorate, so, apart from the civil servants and public utilities, police, hospitals, that sort of thing, everything else is linked to the mining industry. In Ndola, there is a proper hospital – even looks after blacks – and in the other towns, there are cottage hospitals for whites only. We have one with twelve white beds, run by a nursing sister who is also a midwife. Some of the miners, the professionals – diamond drillers, engineers, hoist drivers, administration – they have families and we have a special section on the mine where they live, and that’s where the cottage hospital is situated.’ It was all said with hardly a pause.

  ‘Oh, I see, so the white miners are in the majority, then?’ I made a mental note to ask him what the hell a diamond driller was doing in a copper mine.

  ‘No, man, don’t be silly; we have ten thousand black mine workers, only about four hundred white miners.’

  ‘No black cottage hospital?’

  ‘Ja, man, like I already told you; in Ndola they got one, a proper hospital with a section for blacks that’s used by all the copper mines. Doctors, too, three from India. But Ndola, it’s 40 miles away. In the wet season, you sometimes can’t get in by road. We have a mine ambulance and we take them there if it’s a bad accident. In the big wet we load the ambulance onto an ore truck and it goes by rail. But we’ve got a clinic for them at the mine, and the Indian doctor comes twice a week from Ndola.’

  ‘And I’d work in that clinic?’

  ‘Ja, dressing wounds, cuts, they happen a lot, but your first priority is the white miners and the accidents that happen to them underground.’ ‘But . . . but doesn’t it stand to reason, with the black-to-white ratio, there’d be a lot more accidents with the black miners?’

  ‘Ja, of course, man, you’re right but also wrong. You see, they’re not so valuable. You must understand, a white man on the Copperbelt is a valuable commodity. Don’t you worry, we look after all the workers. The blacks even got their own union now. But injuries cost money; a black man we can always replace. It doesn’t cost a lot of time and money to train a black from the bush to use a pick and shovel or a crowbar, or even to handle a jackhammer or pneumatic drilling equipment for the stopes.’

  ‘So, the black guys don’t do any of the more skilled jobs?’

  Mr Leslie looked surprised. ‘Of course not, man! The Northern Rhodesian Mine Workers Union made an agreement with management before the war. Black workers are locked out of all management and skilled worker categories. There was some nonsense during the war about bringing the blacks into the union, but it came to nothing.’

  ‘You mean, even if they could do . . . be trained to . . .’

  ‘Ah, let me interrupt you right there, man. I know what you’re going to say. But let me tell you something for nothing, those blacks, they can’t do it, they don’t have the intelligence, they not like us white men, these kaffirs – natives, I mean. They’re straight from the bush, half wild. Even after we train them, they do stupid things, they not like white men, they don’t see consequences. They’re mainly bush blacks from remote African villages, just a few mud huts deep in the bush. When our recruiting gangs go out for the mines, the blacks they bring back, some have never seen a train or been in a town with electric light. They’re primitive, ignorant. And these the ones the stupid British allowed to form a union! Nothing but a bunch of black communists!’ He was getting pretty het up. ‘It’s a training ground for black politicians in case one day they’re granted independence. Can you imagine, they just ten minutes out of the trees, eating mielie pap with their hands and already they’re demanding independence!’

  ‘Mielie pap?’

  ‘Like porridge made from corn; it’s made stiff so you can eat it in lumps.’

  I decided that the state of the local black population wasn’t a topic I should pursue, so I asked, ‘Would I receive any additional medical training, sir? It’s been quite some time and I guess I’m a bit rusty.’

  He grinned. ‘Agh, rusty is nothing. Don’t you worry, man. Like I told you, we’ll let you practise on the blacks before you touch a white guy, except maybe in an emergency.’

  I winced inwardly. ‘Who would I report to? As you can imagine, I know nothing about mining or treating accident victims in underground conditions.’

  ‘Maybe Sister Hamilton can help a bit but, you must understand, women don’t go underground.’ He shrugged. ‘I dunno, man. You’ll find out soon enough. The other medics will help you.’ He began to read through the papers Nick had prepared for me, laying each sheet aside until he’d gone through them all, by no means a lengthy task. Then he stabbed his forefinger onto the pile and looked directly at me. ‘What are you talking about, man? What you’ve done here is perfect. You’re trained in combat conditions. You’re used to open wounds, bad accidents . . . just like in a mine. You can stitch up cuts, set bones, stop bleeding, inject, clean wounds, do bandages, splints, resuscitate . . .’

  I hesitated, uncertain. ‘Well, yeah . . . but it was a while back now.’

  ‘You don’t forget that stuff, man.’

  ‘I guess,’ I said, my tone uncertain.

  ‘Well, then, no worries, anything else can be done on the surface when the doctor visits or we can send our ambulance to Ndola. Most of the time you’ll be patching up the blacks – but they don’t feel pain like we do. These mine blacks sometimes just lie down and die of something that’s no bother to the white man. Just lie down an’ croak.’

  I was shocked by these remarks and felt compelled to say something. ‘Is there any scientific support for this idea that black people have a higher pain threshold?’ I asked, immediately realising I’d probably gone too far and blown the interview.

  ‘No, man, you don’t need scientists to tell you that. Just you wait and see. All I can say is, you are in for a few surprises.’

  ‘Sir, I guess I’ve blown this interview but, if I am to work as a medic, the colour of a man’s skin won’t concern me when I’m treating him.’

  Mr Leslie seemed to be thinking for a moment. ‘That’s your business, Mr Reed, but I wouldn’t go saying that too loudly. You love the blacks by all means, but keep away from the women. That’s a definite no-no; go there and you’re as good as dead. It won’t be tolerated, you hear?’

  ‘And white women?’ I asked.

  ‘Big problems there. They’re all married, and if you touch a miner’s daughter, I got to warn you, you’re worse than dead!’

  While I couldn’t imagine anything much worse than death, I asked, ‘But you said there are men from all over the world. Surely they have . . . er, needs?’

  ‘We got an arrangement. You’ll see when you get there.’

  ‘A brothel?’

  ‘No, man, the British don’t allow that in a small mining town. All I can say is, you’ll see.’
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  ‘Sounds intriguing, sir.’ I realised it was time to shut my big trap.

  Mr Leslie picked up a pencil and tapped the blunt end two or three times against the surface of his desk blotter, then pointed the sharp end at my left arm. ‘Tell me about your hand. I noticed it when you came in. Accident, was it? Is that why you’re looking for employment in Africa? Have you got normal movement?’

  I lifted my left hand above the surface of his desk and opened, then fisted, it several times, spreading my fingers. It still hurt like hell to do this, but it was a routine exercise I did fifty or so times a day to try to regain full use of my hand. ‘Doesn’t look too great but it works fine, sir,’ I grinned. There didn’t seem to be any point in mentioning the numb pinky. ‘Yes, it was an accident. As you would have read, I used to be a professional pianist. The hand works well, but not quite well enough to continue to play piano.’

  He smiled. ‘You can count yourself lucky, Mr Reed. I can tell you something for sure, the one thing we’re not looking for in the copper mines is a professional piano player, unless you want to play at the club sometimes for a singsong.’ He paused, then said, ‘I can see you’re worried about working as a medic. The other option is to train you to be a miner, but I don’t recommend that, not with . . .’ he tapped the papers with the pencil, ‘these excellent credentials.’

  ‘Oh, what would that entail?’

  ‘Ja, okay, you go to the School of Mines for three months to learn general mining and to qualify for your IBL – international blasting licence. But, I have to be frank, it’s miserable work, wet and dirty, and after you qualify, it’s still wet and dirty but then you go onto night shift, using high explosives. You’ll do that for a year . . . if you survive.’

  ‘Survive? You mean, prove I can do the job?’

  He laughed. ‘No, Mr Reed, if you don’t kill or injure yourself.’

  I gave him a quizzical look. ‘If I may say so, sir, you’re being extraordinarily honest. Do you make these comments to everyone applying for a job in the mines?’

  He laughed uproariously. ‘Good heavens, no, man!’

  ‘Then why me?’

  He leaned back in his chair, twiddling the pencil. He was a big man with a bit of a paunch, his short dark hair beginning to thin on top. A bulbous nose and ruddy complexion suggested a fondness for spirits. As Barney had told me, beer builds a gut but seldom a nose to go with it. ‘Mining is something I know. I was once a miner, I still am, I suppose. But my leg is finished, no good. I worked underground in one of the company’s gold mines in South Africa, where I was a mine captain; that’s like a supervisor. I had an accident underground. A big rock fell on my hip and leg when I was examining a recently blasted section of a ventilation shaft,’ he explained. ‘I was on all fours when the rock hit. Luckily, it missed my spine but my left leg was trapped. I couldn’t reach my two-way radio or the battery for my miner’s lamp. The light on my hard hat went out. Eleven hundred feet underground is so dark you can feel the air around you, like you’re being smothered in black cotton wool. No one could hear me shouting. I didn’t know it at first but the rock had sliced into an artery at the back of my knee and eventually I passed out from loss of blood.’

  His explanation was rapid and it was obvious it was well rehearsed; over-rehearsed, and so familiar he was barely hearing himself. ‘So, what happened next?’ I asked, in the hope that he’d get to the point.

  ‘What happened next? Let me tell you, man. The radio was squawking – they’re calling from the surface. I’m supposed to call in every hour and I haven’t. But I can’t do anything, man. I’m unconscious. They’ve sent down a team to find me. You see, they know from the logbook what part of the mine I’m in. But they don’t look in the ventilation shaft and they’ve gone way past it by now. Then a timberman who’s coming off shift hears the radio as he’s passing. John Adamson; that was his name. There’s nobody supposed to be in the air tunnel. So, he looks in and he hears it again, crackle-crackle, radio voices calling. He shouts into the shaft. Nothing. I’m unconscious, bleeding to death. So, he crawls in to take a look and, thank the good lord, he finds me.’

  ‘Wow! Lucky for you,’ I remarked, unable to think of any more suitable comment.

  ‘Hey, man, let me tell you something for nothing, the Lord God was definitely on my side that day. I don’t know how Adamson shifted that rock but he did, then he tied the artery. By now, man, I’m more dead than alive. He makes a splint using some planks and his shirt, and then carries me on his back a quarter of a mile to the underground cage and up to the surface.’ Mr Leslie paused and at last took a deep breath. ‘Now, it turned out he’s a Canadian and also he’s been a medic in the war, just like you, Mr Reed. I couldn’t believe it just now when I read your papers and saw that you were a Canadian and a medic. I owe him big time, man. I walk with a stick and I’ve got a built-up boot, but it’s nothing. I’m alive and I’m very grateful.’ He paused. ‘When I came out of hospital a month later, I tried to locate this guy who saved my life but he had left the mine, no forwarding address.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not much repayment for what he did for me, but now I can help you, Mr Reed.’ He tapped my papers with the end of the pencil. ‘Take my advice, don’t make a stupid decision; don’t go to the School of Mines.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your accident, sir.’

  ‘No, man, there’s nothing to be sorry about, accidents happen. Mining is mining. British American Selection Trust, they look after their people very well. They needed someone who knows mining like the back of their hand, specially copper and gold, so I became their American-based recruiting officer.’ Almost without catching his breath, he announced, ‘Now, I advise you to apply to work as a medic. Don’t work underground as an ordinary miner. There are bad guys in the single quarters, riffraff, even some ex-Nazis, SS types. Not everyone, you understand; some guys are just trying to get a little money so they can go back home and start something for themselves. But if you’re a medic, they have to respect you. They never know when they’re going to need you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, I really appreciate your advice.’

  ‘No, a pleasure, man,’ he said with a flick of his hand. ‘So, let’s get down to business, eh? Would you like to make an application? We can process you here in New York and if you’ll sign a contract of employment, we’ll pay for your transport to the mine. We don’t do this for everyone, you understand, but medical staff are different. It’s hard to find anyone with good accident experience. Twelve months is minimum for the contract. I’m sorry, man, I can’t do better.’

  I thanked him again, then said, ‘I take your advice and your offer seriously, sir. But I have the means to get to Central Africa on my own and once there I’d like to see what my options are. If I’m tied to a one-year contract in advance, that wouldn’t be possible.’ I’d been in Las Vegas too long not to know that to be ‘comped’, however good the deal sounds, almost always favours the person making the offer. A year was a long time to be locked into a strange place and a new job. I was still a man on the run and moving quickly could well turn out to be important. But I understood that Mr Leslie had made me a generous and genuine offer and I’d be foolish and ungracious to simply overlook it. ‘Sir, if you’d be kind enough to give me a letter of introduction to the Luswishi River Copper Mine personnel manager, I’d be more than obliged.’

  ‘Of course, I know him well. I’ll add a personal note.’ He rose from his chair with some difficulty, clutching the edge of his desk to support his weight, and called to his secretary. ‘Miss Truscott, bring your pad! Dictation!’ He settled back into his seat with a pronounced sigh, and I wondered if he was in pain. ‘Make sure you go see us first when you arrive. We are the biggest, you hear? The pay for a white medic is good, very good, and also you get a copper bonus.’

  Miss Truscott entered and took the seat beside me, her slim ankles crossed, shorthand pad at the ready on her lap. I caught a whiff of her perfume and my heart suddenly beat faster. It had bee
n over three months since I’d made love to Bridgett in the laundry basket and, while I felt guilty at my response, I couldn’t help feeling horny as hell. Jack Spayd, who had been surrounded by women all his life, was suffering withdrawal symptoms. It wasn’t just the lack of sex, but the lack of the deeply enjoyable presence of women around me. My nights in the piano bar were over forever. Moreover, Central Africa and the copper mines promised to confound my desire to meet this one great need within me. Where would I find women’s laughter, smells, flirtatious glances . . . I suddenly felt very lonely.

  Mr Leslie proceeded to dictate a very friendly letter to the appropriate department at the Luswishi River Copper Mine. ‘Look up his title, Miss Truscott. Make sure it’s the personnel manager, you hear, Coetzee is a very common Afrikaans surname,’ he instructed.

  I watched Miss Truscott walk from the room, her perfume lingering – she was so very pretty. ‘Thank you, Mr Leslie,’ I said. ‘I’ll make a point of presenting your letter of introduction to Mr Curtsy.’

  He laughed, ‘No, man, it’s pronounced Koot-see, to rhyme with look-see,’ he said.

  I thanked him. ‘May I ask one more question?’

  ‘Ask away, that’s why I’m here, man.’

  ‘Well, can you tell me about diamond drillers? It seems curious that there would be miners who drill for diamonds in a gold or copper mine.’

  He chuckled. ‘No, man, the diamonds are on the drills they use in the stope – that’s a big hole, sometimes fifty yards across and nearly as deep. There are dozens of them underground where they extract the copper ore. The tungsten steel bits in the big pneumatic drills are tipped with industrial diamonds to make them harder than the surrounding rock. They drill holes in the walls of this big hole and pack them with gelignite; that’s like dynamite,’ he explained. ‘Then they blast out the rock and ore. We call these men diamond drillers because of their drills. They’re the aristocrats, the most highly paid men underground, not the riffraff from here there and everywhere, like the grizzly men. They’re mostly from South Africa, but some come from Wales.